The Impact of Social Comparison on Parental Self Efficacy: The Moderating Role of Number of Children
2025 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (professional degree), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Social comparison on social media and levels of parental self-efficacy (PSE) plays a big role regarding well-being for both parents themselves and children. Currently, there are no known studies looking into whether being a first-time or second-time parent moderates the association between social comparison on social media and PSE. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate how the number of children in the household affects the association between different aspects of social comparison on social media and PSE. The questionnaires measured social comparison on social media in general, and negative respectively positive emotions from social comparisons. Participants were Swedish parents (N =256), with at least one child aged 0-5 years, recruited in a larger research project. The results from the moderated regression analyses showed that the number of children did not moderate the association between social comparison on social media and PSE. Significant main effects were found from all predictors on PSE at T1. For PSE at T2, significant main effects were found from negative emotions from social comparison and the number of children. This result implies that the association between social comparisons and PSE does not differ between parents with one child and parents with more than one child.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. , p. 50
Keywords [en]
parenthood, parenting, social comparison, social media, parental self-efficacy, PSE, number of children, children
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-119806OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-119806DiVA, id: diva2:1943378
Subject / course
Psykologi, (psykologprogrammet)
Supervisors
Examiners
2025-03-102025-03-102025-03-10Bibliographically approved